History Podcast and Blog

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who became known for having organized the expedition that first circumnavigation of the Earth. On 28 November, the three remaining ships of Magellan’s fleet reached the pacific. One of the ships was lost during a mutiny earlier in the journey. Magellan was born in Portugal around 1480. By his mid-20s, he was sailing in large fleets and was committed in combat. He is known as being the man who proved the the Earth was round back in a time when most people believed it was flat. You have to remember back in the late-1400s and early 1500s people only knew what they could see and that was only as they could travel. Seems like the dark ages, but it was just slightly better than that. In 1505 he travelled all the way to India. This is probably where he got the idea to travel to the west.

Strait of Magellan

The route he later found is now named for him. The trip was originally thought to be a very short one, but instead it took them 6 months to get to Guam. At which point the sailers were starving and pretty upset. He was killed by poison arrow in the Philippines on April 27, 1521.

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Historyonair.com is the online home of the History Podcast. You can find history related articles, video, and audio files here. You can contact the author of this blog and its content at historypodcast@gmail.com.